Abstract
van Boven pushed for the development of universal, uniform standards of implementation of human rights treaties by all member States of the UN. Whereas, Hammarskjold’s took the UN from a ‘talking shop’ to an organization of action, it may be said that that Theodoor van Boven took the human rights programme of the United Nations into the era of responding to gross violations of human rights.
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Notes
- 1.
van Boven (1982), p. 44.
- 2.
See Bossuyt (1985).
- 3.
Division of Human Rights (1979), The legal opinion in response to the Government of Chile. In possession of the author.
- 4.
Ramcharan (1997).
- 5.
See Rodley (1986), for a discussion on UN practice at the time.
- 6.
A copy of the ‘Justiti draft’ is in the possession of the author.
- 7.
See Livermore and Ramcharan (1990).
- 8.
See Tardu (1980).
- 9.
Tolley (1987), p. 105.
- 10.
Tolley (1987), pp. 108–109.
- 11.
Clark (1972).
- 12.
van Boven (1982), pp. 8–9.
- 13.
van Boven (1982), p. 8. (Emphasis added).
- 14.
Howard Tolley has written: “In thirteen years of public debate on violations since 1967] the Commission had only found the political will to apply special fact-finding procedures to three pariah regimes. Complaints about similar violations by other governments triggered political divisions based on ideological alliances and bloc antagonisms that blocked meaningful scrutiny. Since the Commission appeared unlikely to undertake many country-based investigations, reformers proposed a new thematic procedure to investigate one type of violation wherever it occurred. The problem of greatest concern in 1980 was involuntary disappearances, political abductions sponsored by several dictatorships, primarily in Latin America.”—Tolley (1987), p. 104.
- 15.
Tolley (1987), p. 133.
- 16.
See Coomans et al. (2000), pp. 100–101.
References
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Division of Human Rights (1979), Legal opinion in response to the Government of Chile. In possession of the author
Livermore JD, Ramcharan BG (1990) “‘Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances’: An Evaluation of a Decade of United Nations Action”, Canadian Human Rights Yearbook 6 (1989-1990): 217–230
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Rodley N (1986) UN Action Against ‘Disappearances’, Summary or Arbitrary Executions and Torture. Human Rights Quarterly 8: 700–730
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Ramcharan, B. (2018). Breakthroughs in Universal Protection at the UN: Country Investigations, Thematic Investigations, Protection of Human Rights Defenders. Initiative for a High Commissioner. In: The Advent of Universal Protection of Human Rights. Springer Biographies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02221-1_3
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